Monday, June 21, 2010

Detective Work

This week I bring you Character building. It seems I don't know my character well enough so all this week I'm going to dive in to what I think could give me the breakthrough needed to write!

My MC for The Traveler's is Eryn Parker, she is on the hunt to find her attacker to save others and hopefully herself, with the guidance of the team of Traveler's she must find her attacker. I've made a list of what she might do when turning into detective mode:

1. Imagine herself in his next location2. Scope the place out3. Research the footprints left behind. His would be red4. Research victims he's attacked5. Talk with the team of Traveler's6. Drink tea7. Research at the library8. Talk to Blake & Brianna9. Visit the garden10. Pass messages to Hunter

Now as you can see many of these you won't understand, you aren't fully aware of my characters or my world, so visiting a garden and drinking tea wouldn't make any sense, but in the world she is destined to be in it means everything.

What would your characters do if they were faced with finding their attacker? Would they run, forget about it, or attack it straight on?

Drinking tea sounds perfectly logical to me. I often drink tea to help me solve problems. Plus they are always having tea in all those British mystery stories. Okay, they are always having tea in pretty much all British stories.

It depends on the character. Some would fight. A few would run. One would retreat to a tactical location then fight. One would try to figure out why. One would be reckless and stomp after the attacker in whatever direction he thought the attacker went in. One would forget it happened, brush it aside and move on.

They all kind of do their own thing.

Your world sounds interesting. Now I want to know more about this one too.

Depends on which character and which story. Most of my heroine's are the fight type, so tey would rush in to try to save the day - that sorta thing. But I have a couple of reluctant heros that may do thngs a bit differently.

Good question. It's so important to understand our characters as real people. If we don't, then their actions aren't consistent, and the reader will have a believability issue.

I have a character who is attacked. She's a teen, and her father, who is in law enforcement, promises to find the man. She finds herself petrified of leaving the house, which isn't what she expects from herself. One of the ways I have her grow is to overcome her fear and be the type of person who attacks straight on.

Good for you diving into your character! I'm constantly questioning mine. For your question though it depends on which character. One would sneak up on the attacker and snap the neck before they knew what was happening. One would enjoy the torture. One would freeze and most likely become the victim one more time to be "saved" by secondary character, and one other would actually be the attacker in the first place (split personality or something like that) so they would fight themselves? if they figured it out...I think. Toughey. Can't wait to see what else yo come up with for your character!

Great question! I think my characters probably wouldn't attack head on but would put on a 'I don't suspect anything' act upfront but be staking things out behind the scenes and contimplating the attacker's next move...

These sorts of exercises are so great. One of the hardest things to do is to get into another person's head, I think, so getting to know an MC will really help to get that dialogue and their actions right. I think my MCs would attack if confronted with an attacker. :) Excellent question!

So many good character building exercises, so little time.. :) It sounds awesome. Of course I would hope that my character would go after an attacker, but it really depends on which character we are talking about.

Jen,Haha! I was confused by your comment on my blog cause I put up a new one after the award one so I thought it was an older comment so I was scratchin my head. BUT now I understand what you were asking. So if the character is in a sense, transparent-ish, then I have to take a quote from my favorite show Supernatural when they are out of their bodies and can't grab or hit anything. Once one of them can he says "I just full on Swayze'd that mother!" SO I would be inclined to agree that they pull out some Ghost Swayze action and punch the attacker. Or they find Whoopi Goldberg and have her do it!

First of all I fully understand the drink tea thing. Life in my realm revolves around drinking tea. You drink tea when you are stressed. You drink tea when you are sad. You drink tea when you are upset. You drink tea first thing in the morning. Well you get the picture! I totally understand the tea thing.